I spend so much time during the workday sitting in my cube on the computer surfing the net (I know, I know...my bad) and reading other people's blogs, editorials, memoir excerpts, etc and I know that somewhere here in my head lies a story that someone else sitting in their cube on the computer at work might find interesting as well.
If I were to list my favorite films ever, I would always rank at the top "Terms of Endearment". I saw it in the early 80's when it came out and I bawled then and I still bawl now. I would also add other gems like "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Catch Me if You Can"......but another movie is now added to this list and for purely personal reasons: "The Bridges of Madison County". I don't think this is a film that warrants any Top Ten list and not because it is a bad movie; far from it. Directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars alongside Meryl Streep; the book is based on the best selling novel of the same name by Robert James Waller. I had never read the book......I don't like any of those romance type novels that are written by the likes of Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson.....but the movie devastates me.
Anyone who has seen the movie will recall one of the final scenes: on a dark and rainy afternoon, Francesca (Streep) and her unknowing husband are sitting in the front seat of his truck at an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. Francesca looks out the truck window to see Robert (Eastwood), the man she has just spent the past 4 days with....and it is the moment of truth: does she get out of the truck? run to him completely shell shocking her unsuspecting husband? She has already contemplated this decision and what it would mean...to her...to her family....to the kind of future she and Robert would realistically have. But in that moment.....all she sees is him...and all the feelings that have come alive within her are there in front of her.
She is gripping tightly to the car door handle...Robert is standing in the pouring rain staring at her...pleading with his eyes......the camera then focuses on the traffic light above...the light turns from red to green......Francesca releases her hand from the handle..and her husband continues driving. She is trying to contain her grief.....she turns her head to look at Robert one final time. Her husband senses something is bothering her and asks her if she is o.k.....and she pulls herself together...taking a deep breath and returning to her reality, telling him she is fine.
I wasn't as mature as Francesca- I "got out of the truck". While I worried and stressed over the same things Francesca contemplated, I took the risk. My "Robert Kincaid" came in the form of a young and cute brunette female who represented all the happiness I was craving. Who single handedly held what I thought was my future contentment. She had fulfilled me in a way I hadn't been in so long...and thought never had been before and will never be again. I tried many times to let her go...to refrain from all contact....to focus again on my marriage and try to improve it. But my husband could not compete with this "fantasy" I had in my mind........but was it a fantasy? I would like to think not.....fantasies fade......whatever this tug was for me.....it tugged the hell out of me for a ten year period. I am hoping this blog will help me make some sense of it all. I want to believe that this was not just two sick individuals coming together to cause misery to each other and everyone else....there had to have been something there of genuine feeling. As much as I can recall the painful stuff in moments of solitude, I can also recall my good intentions, hopes and thoughts. I wanted her to be happy. I couldn't accept that I wasn't enough. Hell, she wasn't enough for me either. Not by herself.....I wanted her in my life terribly, but I also wanted my full life: the one that included my children, my friends including my ex-husband, my desire for independence and "me" time. When the end came...and all that it included was her and I in a lonely, quiet house.....I felt empty. No longer fulfilled. Battered.
Was it all in vain? I want to reaffirm to myself what I do believe to be the truth: knowing myself as well as I do......I would have had a far greater regret had I not gone to be with her. I would never have known what I know now. I would have always wondered. She would be sitting on top of some high mountain of glory representing everything I wanted and had forfeited.
I need to believe it was all for a reason. I think I know the reason....it's just hard on those days...like the days of this past week...when I forget what that reason is.
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